Jason Clarke Joins Bigelow’s Bin Laden Pic

It’s taken Kathryn Bigelow quite a while to get her follow-up to The Hurt Locker rolling, but now it appears her movie about the guys who hunted down Osama Bin Laden is gearing towards a shoot. Jason Clarke (The Chicago Code, Texas Killing Fields) has become the first actor to sign on for Bigelow’s currently untitled project, which is set up at Sony Pictures.

Clarke will play one of the elite soldiers assigned by the US government to hunt down terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Deadline also says that actors such as Tom Hardy, Jennifer Ehle, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba, Rooney Mara, and Nina Arianda are in contention for other roles, although no offers have been made yet. There’s no mention of Joel Edgerton, who was once attached to the film, but seems to have stepped away after delays pushed filming back.

Kathryn Bigelow is directing from a screenplay by Mark Boal, who also wrote the script for The Hurt Locker. Production is scheduled to start sometime early next year, with an October 12, 2012 US release date already set.